


It's Just Like Ben Folds (ft Regina Spektor) Said

by elmathelas



Category: Ten Inch Hero
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 17:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmathelas/pseuds/elmathelas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several months after they break up, Tish and Priestly meet unexpectedly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Just Like Ben Folds (ft Regina Spektor) Said

Priestly stood in the doorway, staring into the small, narrow room. As always the bed was meticulously made, hospital corners folded neatly with a peach colored cotton blanket, so soft with many washings as to be almost threadbare, arranged in an accordian fold across the foot. There was little other color in the room-- a single large window at the end threw a square of sunlight on to the white wall, but there were no pictures, no curtains, nothing to indicate the preferences of the woman who lived here. She was sitting in front of the window, her face turned towards the light, hand trailing over the textured pages of the book that was open in her lap.

He cleared his throat, and her hand stilled.

"I knew you were there," she said, her voice soft, as always, but carrying a distinct note of amusement. She turned her head, the sunlight illuminating the nimbus of her white hair, making it shine like a halo. "You reek of patchouli."

"Sally," he groaned, "I do not." He lifted the front of his shirt to his face, sniffed. Sandalwood, maybe. Whatever was in that all natural organic hand crafted slice of soap Zo had given him as part of a basket for his birthday. She'd said they were things to help him nourish himself and he'd said thank you but vowed he'd never listen to a CD of whalesong or wash himself with hand crafted soap. Still, mere weeks later the whale CD was in his car and apparantly he smelled like a member of the counterculture.

He walked into the room. "A friend gave me this soap," he said, pulling out the other chair from where it was tucked in next to the bed and sitting next to her. The sun was warm on his face, and he angled himself so it wouldn't be too bright.

"I always said that scent was how hippies found each other," she said, closing the book that was on her lap.

"I'm hardly a hippie," he said.

"Let me feel your hair," she said suddenly, as if the talk of hippies had reminded her that his was an issue. He leaned forward and she brushed her fingers along the bristly edge of the ridge he combed up on the crown of his head, smoothed her fingers down the gelled sides. "Good," she said, "I'm glad it's back. What color is it today?"

"Blue," he said, settling back in his chair.

"What kind of blue?" she pressed.

He looked at his dim reflection in the bright window. "Dark blue, sort of on the green side."

"Like the ocean," she said, happily, and he realized that for all his description was poor she was right.

"I guess it is."

"What does your shirt say today?" he asked.

"Do not play in, on or around," he said, "with a square around it, so it's like a sign."

"Oh, Priestly," she sighed. "Comparing yourself to a dumpster?"

He laughed. "I was thinking more an industrial washing machine, but alright."

"You said you were going to bring me a book this time," she said, "I'm tired of this one." She hefted the braille book on to the windowsill.

"Two audio books," he said, "I couldn't find the braille of the one I really wanted to give you, and I couldn't find the audio book either."

"Then you'll have to read it to me," she said, guileless and pleased as a child, and he smiled, having anticipated the request.

"I'll keep looking for the braille," he said as he pulled her presents out of his bag. The two audio books went on the small shelf next to the window. "I am not reading this whole book to you."

"Is it long, or are there sexy parts?" she asked.

"Both."

She laughed as he opened the book.

"Once upon a time," he began.

"Ooh, I love books that start like this," she said.

He cleared his throat, knowing that a raised eyebrow would be lost on her. "May I?"

"Sorry, go ahead."

"Thank you. Once upon a time, there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith."

 

The sun was setting by the time he was leaving, covering the white walls with a pale orange wash. The plate glass wall of the lobby was bright enough to blind him temporarily, leaving an afterimage around the edges of everything. He pulled out his sunglasses and put them on, polarized lenses allowing everything to snap back into place, then stumbled as he almost walked into someone.

"Sorry," he said, throwing his hands out, then pulling them back quickly.

"Priestly," she said, and he blinked through the lingering glare, even though he knew the voice immediately.

"Tish, what are you doing here?" He pulled his glasses off. She was carrying two enormous plastic caddies, like big tackle boxes, the muscle in her upper arms visibly straining against the weight.

"Hair and nails," she said, "I come in twice a month and spend a day in the salon." She shifted and he imagined curlers and bottles of polish by the noise of the boxes in her hands. "What fine service might you be offering?"

He thought of a dozen snide responses in a second, then shrugged them off. "Just visiting a friend."

"How mature of you," she said, shifting again, and he warred with himself, whether he was supposed to offer to help her carry the boxes or not.

"I'm a mature guy," he said.

"And swapping your closing shift with Piper so you wouldn't have to work with me? That was mature?"

"Hey, I had a committment," he said.

"Right," she said, and he noticed the color rise in her cheeks. "I have to go, I have to catch the bus."

"With those?" He looked at the boxes, big as carryon bags. Catching a rush hour bus with that kind of baggage was hell.

"Obviously," she said.

"Let me give ou a ride," he said.

"Priestly," she started, but he shook his head.

"Just let me give you a lift? Come on."

"Alright." She walked with him through the automatic doors, and already the glass was less bright, the light fading now that the sun was below the horizon.

"Wait here, I'll bring the car around," he said, pausing by a giant planter.

"They're not that heavy," she protested, but she rested them on the edge of the concrete.

"I'll be right back." He jogged off, keys in hand, half afraid that she'd be gone when he got back, but she was still there, looking out over the parking lot when he drove up.

He hit the button to pop open the trunk, watched through the rearview as she loaded her boxes into the trunk and slammed it shut, apparantly remembering the iffy catch as she pulled up a couple of times to test it before she walked to the front of the car.

"Screw the Whales, Save Greenstamps?" she asked when she got in the car. "That's a little obscure, don't you think?"

He waited until her seatbelt was buckled to drive. "It's covering up the I Am a Government Death Panel sticker," he said, "it was the only thing that fit."

"I can see why you might want to avoid that one when you're driving over here," she said, smirking at him.

"Right. Where are you going?" He paused at the end of the driveway, not sure which way to go.

"I've got a shift at the shop, you might as well take me there," she said.

"How many hours are you working there?" he asked.

"Like you don't see the schedule," she said, looking straight ahead. "About twenty, same as you."

"And you're still in school?"

"I'm finished with that," she said, turning to really look at him for the first time.

"It's been that long," he said, surprised.

"Obviously," she said, "and obviously no one tells you anything about me when you're around."

"I don't ask," he said.

"It was a few months ago. When my state license came through Trucker gave me a party at the shop. Zo baked a cake."

"A real cake?" Priestly asked, though there were obviously more pressing questions here than whether or not Zo had handled a refined sugar product.

"It was made with like, millet and agave, or something," she said, "Piper and Noah made cupcakes from a mix though."

"Clearly I was not invited," he said.

"It was when you were away," she said, and he nodded, wondering if he would have shown up or at least signed the card that Trucker would have put out on the employee bulletin board.

"I didn't realize you needed a licence," he said.

"You wouldn't," she said, "given that you've managed to con the people at the beauty supply store into selling to you without one."

He reached up and touched the top of his hair. "They have better dye," he protested.

"And it's flammable, and toxic, and my scissors are very, very sharp. That and someone who didn't know what they were doing could really ruin your day. Hence, license."

"So it's all about the danger for you, then?" He pulled on to the street that the shop was on, slowing down in deference to all the pedestrians who kept wandering out into the road.

"Obviously," she said, "and I do hair at a nursing home on my day off for the thrills."

"Never doubted it for a second." He parked in front of the shop, in a loading zone.

"What were you doing there?" she asked.

"I was visiting an old friend of my grandmother's," he said.

"You go there often?" she asked.

"About as often as you do," he said, registering the surprise on her face with some satisfaction.

"You dad's mom or your mom's mom?" she asked.

"My mom's mother," he said, "she produced a fucked up kid but she was an alright lady and her friends were cool. Sally doesn't have any kids and most of her family is far away so I go and visit her a couple of times a month, bring her books on tape."

"Does she have glaucoma?" Tish asked.

"No, she's been blind since she was real young. She reads braille but sometimes she wants to just listen. Sometimes I read to her."

"You softie." Her voice sounded really fond for the first time since he'd seen her and he found himself leaning into it. "What did you bring her today?"

"Two murder mysteries and I started reading _Stranger in a Strange Land_ to her."

She smacked his upper arm, lightly. "That book is full of sex!" she admonished him.

"I know!" he said, "which is why it's so essential that I find the braille or an audiobook before I wind up reading too much of it!"

She laughed, leaning her head against the back of the seat, and he let himself look at the curve of her neck, the delicate looking bones where her throat met her chest, and for one moment he was hit with the sense memory of what that spot tasted like so hard it knocked the breath out of him.

"Nice," she said, looking right at him, her direct gaze enough to make him shake off the thought. "Look harder." She undid her seatbelt and opened the door. He walked around to the trunk with her, lifting out the boxes before she could protest.

"You want these in the back room?" he asked as she held the door for him.

"Yeah, thanks, but you know, I can carry them, it's kind of my job."

"I got it." Every head in the place-- Trucker, Piper, and Zo, turned to look at them. There were three customers in line, and Piper paused, frozen, her hand suspended in air while she handed a man back his change. "What?" he snapped, and all three went back to what they were doing, the strange moment of silence over.

He set the boxes down on a clear space on the couch in the back room, turned to look at Tish as she clocked in, writing the time on her card.

"So," he said. "That was weird."

She shrugged but didn't look at him when she spoke. "They haven't seen us in the same place for months," she said.

"We don't work together anymore," he pointed out, "we're both here just part time, it's not that weird."

"It's plenty weird," she said, tying on an apron.

"Have you been saying mean stuff about me?" He'd meant for it to come out sounding tough, indignant, but instead it sounded like he was whining. He waited for Tish to deny it.

"Not exactly," she said.

"What?"

"Look, without delving too deeply into sociology here, I work with three other women. After a brief relationship with a man, we break it off abruptly and suddenly we're not seen in the same room ever again for months. Certain assumptions are made, and maybe it's a little bit gratifying to be around people who assume that I'm not the one who is always wrong, so I haven't been trash talking you, but if the suggestion has been made once or twice that maybe you're kind of a douchebag, I haven't risen to the occasion and defended your honor, ok?" She was standing with her spine extremely straight, shoulders back, leaning forward just slightly, and between the posture and the color in her cheeks and the brightness to her eyes he knew she was dangerously close to tears.

"I don't think you're always wrong," he said, his arms feeling useless where they dangled at his sides.

"I didn't say you did."

"No, I know you didn't." She heaved a giant sigh, rolled her shoulders a few times. "I have to get to work."

"We should hang out some time," he said.

"Hang out, or do a long over due post mortem on our _relationship_?" she asked.

"Hang out," he said, "I'm not really in the mood for that other thing."

"Ok, call me sometime." She turned to go.

"Tomorrow," he said, "what are you doing tomorrow?"

"I have to work at two," she said.

"I've got the day off. We should," he searched his mind for something they had never done while they were dating. "We should go kayaking."

"I don't know," she said. "I don't have a kayak."

"Come on, I know this guy, he'll totally give us a break on the rental. Can you get yourself out if you roll?"

"Yeah, doesn't mean I want to."

"So you won't roll. Come on, we can go look at otters."

She crossed her arms, but appeared to be thinking about it.

"Otters," he reiterated, bringing his hands up to his chest and miming breaking open a clam. At that moment Piper walked in, started at the way he was gesturing to his own chest with curved fingers, and hurried to her cubby with her head down.

"Don't want to know," she said as she untied her apron.

"We were talking about _otters,_" he said, "what did you think we were talking about?"

Piper shrugged. "Tish, I have to go to class," she said, "I'll see you later."

"Guess I'd better get out there," Tish said to him. "But yeah, I'd like to see the otters."

"Meet me at the entrance to the wharf tomorrow at nine, then," he said, "do you need me to come get you?"

She shook her head. "I can make it there myself. See you." She hurried off to the front.

"Right." He wandered over to the posted schedule, double checked his shifts, and left through the back door, not wanting to face any of the people who had fallen silent when he'd walked in.

 

The next morning at eight thirty he was sitting on a bench, scrolling through his cell phone contacts. His thumb hovered over the keys as he selected his brother's number. He sighed and pocketed the phone, considering that half an hour likely wouldn't be enough time to talk to him, even briefly, and then put his head back on straight. His brother was probably in a meeting, anyway, or maybe even in Europe. He hadn't talked to him in almost two months, since he'd taken Tish home to meet his family.

_  
"My family isn't what you might expect," he said, trying to think of the right way to put it. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the futon. Tish was sitting on a cushion in front of him, leaning against his chest, their hands resting over her navel._

"Circus performers?" she asked, tilting her head up so the crown of her head was pressed into his clavicle, almost painful as she tried to meet his eyes. "Hippies?"

"No," he said, gently pushing her head away. She stayed put, so he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her mouth, hands tightening around hers as she tried to deepen it, tried to distract him. He eased her away. "That's not what I mean, I mean, you might expect them to be circus performers."

"Fortune 500 mogul and his cultured but frigid wife, older brother who fell right in with the company line?" she guessed.

He froze behind her.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"I... don't know if my mom is frigid. I think I'd prefer not to think about it, actually."

"I didn't have to guess," she said, "it's not that hard to read between the lines with you."

It was about an hour's drive to his parents' house, and she'd been silent most of the way. The only questions she asked him on the way were regarding some of the arcane finer points of ettiquette that he was sure he'd never learned, or if he had he'd soon forgotten them. The day had gone fine until after lunch. They were sitting in the living room, and his father had been praising his new look, the cut of his hair, his clothes.

__

"Finally ready to give up the punk rock lifestyle?" he asked. "Maybe you're ready to put that degree to use."

"Well, no sir, it's not something I've thought of lately," Priestly had said.

"Wouldn't do you much good without graduate school, but it's not as if you couldn't go any time you'd like," his mother said, her voice as smooth as a snake slithering its way through tall grass. His heart quickened in his chest, the same way it would if he had heard a real snake's rattle. "What about you, Patricia?" she asked. She hadn't bothered to find out if Tish was short for Patricia or not; then again, most people assumed the same thing. "Are you in school?"

"No, not presently," Tish said, a small apologetic smile on her lips. Priestly bit his tongue to keep from telling her that she didn't owe his mother an apology for anything.

The smile that his mother gave her was pointed, satisfied. "Presently means in a short amount of time. I think you meant you're not in school at present."

Priestly didn't have to turn his head to know that Tish's face was burning, her shoulders were probably bowed forward. He wanted to reach out, put a hand on her back or better yet just take her hand, but he was frozen in the face of his mother's hostility.

"Yes, that is what I meant," she said.

"And have you ever been in school?" his mother pressed, as ruthless as a lawyer, no hint of the fact that she was actually a psychologist, someone people came to for help in their lives.

"Just high school," Tish said.

Priestly knew the forthcoming question before his mother even spoke. "Did you finish?"

"Yes, of course," Tish said. One hand fluttered up to tuck a strand of hair that had never been out of place behind her ear.

"One has to ask," his mother said, all faux concern, "what with him being so wealthy, yet making himself available to everyone."

"I didn't know," she started.

"Of course not, but you seem very attached to him."

"Mother," Priestly said, shifting to the edge of the sofa.

"Boaz, let me finish," she said. "You become very attached to people rather quickly, don't you?"

"I wouldn't say that," Tish said.

"But it appears to be true. A very deep, very swift connection, but not unique, perhaps one in a long line of such connections."

"Enough," Priestly said, standing. "We have to be going."

His resolve to stand up to his parents, for himself as much as for Tish, had been tested when his father told him to sit down. He'd capitulated, expecting something more like reason from him, but got nothing of the sort, and the day had finally ended with his mother suggesting in her thinly veiled psychobabble that Tish was little better than a common slut, and his father telling him that if he walked out, he'd be walking out of any chance to come back into the family business. He'd walked out, Tish's hand held tight in his, not quite pulling her along.

In the car on the way home she'd wept silently most of the way, rebuffing any of his attempts to figure out what was wrong-- if it was his mother's accusations, or his father's ultimatum, or even his own inability to really sheild her from their insanity. He asked if he had pulled on her too hard when they were leaving-- he'd felt like a caveman, dragging her off, but pausing to ask if she would like to stay or go hadn't really seemed like an option.

She hadn't spoken until they were almost to his apartment.

_  
"Your mom has a point," she said, her voice surprisingly even._

"No, she doesn't," Priestly said, his voice flat. "When I told you she was insane, I wasn't being hyperbolic."

"She's insane, and rude, and mean, but she's not stupid," Tish pressed on, "nothing she said was a lie."

"Tish," he tried, pulling into his parking space, but she interrupted him.

"No. I do make connections quickly, I do think that every person I'm with at any given moment is the right person, for me, but it's never worked out, has it?"

"Who says it had to?" he asked. "You're allowed to date different people in your life."

"My expectations are never reasonable," she muttered, leaning her head against the seat and staring out her window. Her reflection was as pale as milk, and he fought the urge to grab her shoulder and turn her around so he could see her face, her real, living face that was doubtlessly red and blotchy, not white.

"Who told you that?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Did anyone need to tell me? I can figure it out for myself. But your mother isn't the first person to suggest that there's something seriously wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you," he said, reaching out to touch the back of her neck, rubbing the base of her skull with his thumb. She shook her head and he took his hand away.

She didn't counter him. "I can't do this. I can't be the reason that your family doesn't want you around."

He sighed. "It's not you, Tish, it's not about you. My dad's company does something with semiconductors. I couldn't give a shit about that if I tried. When I told my mom I wanted to study psychology, like her, she slapped me and told me there's no money in it. You're not the reason my dad doesn't want me in on his business. I don't want in on it. I don't want that lifestyle, I don't want to work eighty hours a week for forty years, I don't want to be the boss of an entire company. What they said about me leaving with you wasn't the first time that they've told me not to bother coming back."

"Regardless," she said, sitting up, taking her seatbelt off. "I can't be something that comes between you and your family. I'm just not that important."

"Tish, that's bullshit," he said.

"It's not." She got out, ran to her door and closed it before he could even get himself out of the seatbelt. When he tried calling, she didn't pick up the phone.

He spotted her before she saw him, something of a miracle, considering his hair. He stood up and waved to get her attention, then walked over and met her at the entrance to the pier. She surprised him by reaching out her arms, and he gave her a cautous hug, the brim of her hat knocking into his face. He stepped back and took in the broad hat and huge sunglasses she was sporting.

"You look like Audrey Hepburn."

"Thanks." She grinned at him. "That's sort of what I was going for."

"I'm afraid your hat will blow off once you're on the water," he said.

She shook her head, and gave it a tug. "Hat pins."

"Fancy." They started walking towards the water. "I already picked out a kayak for you, hope you don't mind."

"It's not an open one is it? Because I told you, I can do a roll just fine."

"It's closed," he said, leading her to the water. There was a small group of people heading out twards the channel, about a half hour's paddle on the other side of the wharf, and he waved to the instructor as he walked up the small strip of sand. Their kayaks were chained to a small tree, and he unlocked them with a key from his pocket.

"You paid for them already?" she asked as she took the apron he handed her.

"No, I stole them," he replied as he shrugged into his own apron, adjusting the straps so it hung at the right height.

"Great, I'm the unwitting accessory to a crime, then," she said, holding still as he reached out to adjust the buckles on her straps.

"They're from my work," he said, carrying his own kayak to the water. "No one told you that this is where I work now?"

"I told you, we don't talk about you." She kicked her shoes off and stowed them in the boat, then pushed it out. "Piper said you were working on the wharf, but I just assumed she meant on the boardwalk."

"Nice, because I look like a carnival worker?" he asked.

"No, because that's where most of the jobs are, ass," she said, "it's not always all about how you look."

"Whatever." He snapped the edge of the apron around the cockpit of the boat, pulled on the little bungee cord at the front to make sure it was tight. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Tish watching him, immitating his movements carefully.

"Have you used an apron before?" he asked, watching her pull it tight.

"It was a long time ago."

"If you flip and you can't roll up, remember you have to grab this loop and pull," he said, gesturing to the excess bungee cord.

"You're really intent on me flipping this boat over, aren't you?" she said. "How many of your students have flipped so far?"

"Just one, and he was trying to do a cartwheel."

"Well, I'm not going to flip over." She adjusted her hat. "Can we go towards the lighthouse?"

"Sure," he said, pointing himself in the right direction. "Let's go."

They were about twenty minutes from the thickest part of the kelp forest, but their first otter was seen only a few hundred feet from the wharf, floating on his back and gliding along beside Tish's kayak.

"I think they like the attention," Priestly pointed out when she kept leaning over the side of her boat to coo at it. "They're always hanging around the kayakers."

"I'm afraid I'm going to whack him in the head with the paddle."

"Nah, they're smarter than that. Or the ones who aren't are gone already." He sped up, the ripples of his wake disturbing the otter, and it submerged itself and swam away.

"Pleasant thought," she said, paddling forward again.

They didn't speak much as they paddled. Tish stayed ahead, not looking back, as he would have done if she were behind him. There was hardly any wind, and the rippled surface of the water seemed to bounce and sway as if it were made of rubber, like they were gliding along the top of a trampoline. He disturbed the illusion as he paddled faster to catch up with Tish, coasting on the momentum as he manipulated the paddle like a rudder to get parallel to her boat.

"Ever get the feeling like you could just step out of the boat and walk on the surface?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, Priestly, I've never thought I could walk on water."

"But doesn't it look like it's made of rubber, like you'd bounce when you walked on it? Here, just hold still for a second." They both held their paddles across the surface of their boats, just bobbing, the ripples from their movements soon dissolving into the surfae of the water.

"I can see it," she said, reaching out with her paddle to touch the surface. "Now I can't stop seeing it."

He laughed. "Another mind warped."

The seals were out in force once they reached the kelp forest, always just out of range of the boats, their heads poking above the surface of the water to stare as they came closer, then submerging again. The nearest other kayakers were nearly a hundred feet away, their voices but not their words barely carrying across the water.

They paddled around the point, giving the surfers a wide berth.

"Do you ever think it's weird?" Tish asked, pausing to watch them.

"What?" he asked, though he had a pretty good idea of what she was going to say.

"Surfing here, considering that lighthouse is a giant memorial to a surfer who died here?"

He leaned back in the boat, let the waves gently move him up and down while he tilted his face to the sun. "I do feel a little weird," he admitted, "but no one ever talks about that, when they're here."

She didn't pick up her paddle, and he was content to float for a while, so relaxed in the sun that it surprised him when she spoke again.

"Have you talked to your parents lately?" she asked.

"No, but I talk to my brother from time to time," he said.

"I'm sorry."

"It has nothing, literally nothing, to do with you," he said, desperate to make her understand this, and why did she think the middle of the open water was a good place to have this discussion? It wasn't like he'd be able to get away quickly... which made it kind of perfect, actually.

"Priestly, this doesn't have to be your life." She was looking straight ahead, eyes focused on the horizon, but her voice was clear.

"What, this?" he said, gesturing to it all-- the ocean, the seals, the bright blue sky. "This is great! Who wouldn't want this to be their life?"

"I mean, working two jobs, living in your crappy apartment," she sounded like she meant to go on.

"I love my apartment," he said.

"I know you do now, but."

"Tish, the life I have is the life I want. Really." He put his paddle in the water and swung his kayak around so he was on her other side, his hull bumping up against hers but facing her now. He set his hand on the prow of her boat to steady himself so his boat wouldn't knock into hers too hard. "And what you don't know, one of the things you don't know, is that I wasn't exactly left destitute. My grandmother left me money in trust but I have to either use it for school or wait until I'm forty to access it. But, either way." He shrugged. "Golden parachute."

The corner of her mouth twitched. "I bet your mother hates that."

"She does," he said, "she also hates that I won't go back to school. But it would be useless."

"Why?"

"All I wanted to study, other than psychology, was marine biology. Do you have any idea the number of marine biology graduates in Santa Cruz?"

She looked around. "I can imagine."

"Yeah, and I'd wind up right back where I am now. And that's all beside the point that I don't want to."

"You don't want to," she repeated, smirking a bit. "Huh."

"What?"

"I knew you were ruled by your desires but I just realized, I had no idea what they were."

"And I have no idea what goes on inside your head." He thought for a moment, sure that he had to be wrong, then shook his head. "None."

"Maybe we should have figured that out at some point," she said.

"Not like we had a ton of time." His hand felt overly warm sitting on the dark hull of the boat, but he didn't want to move it, didn't want to let go and either drift further away or start their kayaks awkwardly bumping into eachother.

"We could always try again," she said. "Want to go out sometime?"

"Sure," he said, "we could go kayaking."

"Ooh, I don't know, Priestly, that's kind of cheesy considering you work for the kayak touring company."

"Well, what then, you want to give me a haircut?" He froze when he asked, remembering the last time he'd changed his hair in deference to her, or to what he'd thought she'd wanted.

"That'd work," she said, reaching up to run her fingers over the top of his faux-hawk. "It's a little uneven, and you've got a cowlick right there," she pressed her finger into the part that always gave him the most trouble, "with a little adjustment to your part you wouldn't need so much gel."

"That obvious?"

"Only to me." She let her hand linger on the top of his hair, sending little spikes of sensation down his spine as she pressed more firmly on it. "I mean, if this is the way you want your hair."

"It is," he said, "there's no big message. It's just the way I want it."

"Good." She reached out and grasped the top of his kayak, pulling herself forward until they were nose to nose. He leaned forward, expecting her to kiss him, but she just pushed off, paddling backwards to get clear of him. "You can tell me more when I'm doing your hair. People always spill their guts then." She started paddling towards the point, never once looking back to see if he was keeping up.


End file.
